The Family of Noctuid Moths are being used to study the Evolution of Insect
Wing Shapes

Joe Kunkel has been collaborating with Ted Sargent on collecting Noctuids,
identifying them
and analysing their wing venation and shape. Ted's
experience with the noctuids, and particularly the underwings, Catocala,
bring numerous biological problems and insights
into the study.

An initial study involved three groups of the genus Catocala.
These
moths have a variety of colored and melanic hindwings and varying degrees of
cryptic forewings:

The three subgroups of Catocala
, (A, B and C) have been separated on classical grounds.

Here are some Catocala from group A

Here are some Catocala from group B

Here are some Catocala from group C

There is no superficial way to group these species and most of the 300-odd
species from around the world that constitute this speciose genus, Catocala
. The way in which experts in this group have assigned relationships
is via diagnostic key features including spines on the adult legs. We have
chosen to use the wandering of wingvein landmarks on the forewings of adults
as a trait to observe and compare between species, with the hope that they
will be seen to diverge from congruence with each other as two sibling species
diverge from one another. Hopefully this random divergence from each other
will continue with increasing time separation of two extant species. The
basic questions we hope to answer in our research are: Do wing landmarks diverge
in a measureable way from perfect congruence when species diverge? -and- Can we
confirm that this divergence is a reliable measure of length of species
separation?